There are an increasing number of mobile devices and services for use with mobile devices that are available in the marketplace today. These new services can be classified as mobile device centric services and mobile device-external gateway paired services. Examples of mobile device centric services include wireless IP modem services, biometric scanning services, Bluetooth connectivity services, and the like. Examples of mobile device-external gateway paired services include messaging services, photo exchange services, GPS services, and the like.
In the mobile telecommunications industry, account billing and service tracking pose a significant obstacle for mobile network operators and/or network carriers. Each time a mobile user utilizes a service, the network operator would like to bill them for the service. Further, network operators prefer to lock a user into a contract for a bundled service over a longer period of time. However, it's more than likely that a mobile user would like to adopt a “just-as-needed” or “pay-per-use” approach for using services in which the users are only billed for the actual service that they use.
Unfortunately, current network operator billing systems are so complicated that these customized user requests are difficult to accommodate. In fact, most network operators cannot offer a “just-in-time” delivery of mobile device services because the network infrastructure is incapable of providing that level of flexibility. Furthermore, mobile device users are often changing the services that they subscribe to as new services become available and as their needs for services change.